Born 1668 or 1673; educated in medicine, and served as a medical practitioner in south Wales; developed a method for ascertaining longitude using a theoretically derived table of the earth's magnetic variation (declination), in which the angle between geographic north and the direction indicated by a compass needle was calculated for different points of the globe; Williams also invented a device for desalinating sea water to make it drinkable; died, 1755.
Nathanael Mattheus von Wolf was born in Danzig (Gdansk), Poland on 24 January 1724; elected Fellow of the Royal Society, 1777; died, 15 December 1784.
Born, c 1646; educated, Christ's College, Cambridge; BA, 1667; Fellow of the Royal Society, 1681; secretary of the Royal Society, 1687–1709 and 1710–1714; died, 1715.
Paulus Orosius was a Christian historian, theologian and disciple of St. Augustine who came from Gallaecia. He wrote Historiarum Adversum Paganos Libri VII ("Seven Books of History Against the Pagans"), which he wrote in response to the belief that the decline of the Roman Empire was the result of its adoption of Christianity.
Father Antonio Piaggi of the order of Scole Pie resided for many years in Resina at the foot of Mount Vesuvious, he kept a diary of the volcanic activity 1779-1794.
Born, 1655; educated at Winchester College; at New College, Oxford, 1675-1682; FRS, 1684; second secretary of the Royal Society and edited the Philosophical Transactions; formed the Philosophical Society of Oxford, 1685; practised in Oxford; practised in Exeter, 1691-; Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, 1692; died, 1721.
Caleb Burrell Rose was an East Anglian surgeon and geologist.
Born, 1810; BA; Entered family iron founding business aged 21; patented the 'buckled plate' (1852); Fellow of the Royal Society, (1854); Awarded Cunningham Medal of the Royal Irish Academy (1862); honorary MAI (Master of Engineering), University of Dublin (1862); honorary LLD, University of Dublin (1864); President, Institution of Civil Engineers of Ireland (1866); President, Geological Society of Dublin (1846); with his son John William Mallet, FRS compiled an earthquake catalogue amd seismic map of the world (1850-1858); was the first to determine an earthquake's epicentre (Naples, 1858); died, 1881.
Colonel John Herschel was the son of Sir John Frederick William Herschel.
Robert Boyle was born on 25 January 1627 at Lismore, Munster, seventh son of the notorious Richard Boyle, first Earl of Cork, thereby having high status and considerable wealth. His education began at home, then continued at Eton and with foreign travel from 1639. He visited France, Geneva - where he suffered a conversion experience which was to have a profound effect on him - and Italy, where he discovered the writings of Galileo. He returned to England in 1644, taking up residence at the family manor of Stalbridge, Dorset, from 1645. He visited Ireland in 1652-1653, then by 1656 moved to Oxford where he joined the circle of natural philosophers there which formed the liveliest centre of English science at that time. After the Restoration in 1660, many of them moved to London, where the Royal Society was founded (with Boyle among its founding Fellows), although Boyle did not move there until 1668, sharing a house in Pall Mall with his sister Katherine, Lady Ranelagh, until they both died in 1691. In the 1640's he became preoccupied with themes which were to continue throughout his life - vindication of an approved understanding of nature, in its own right as well as its utilitarian advantages; insistence on the importance of experiment in pursuing this aim, and the advocacy of spirituality. To these ends he became involved with other like-minded individuals known as the 'Invisible College', and subsequently the circle of intellectuals surrounding the Prussian emigré, Samuel Hartlib. He devoted his life to extensive and systematic experimentation, and to writing. His major scientific work on pneumatics, 'New Experiments Physico-Mechanical, Touching the Air and its Effects', used the air pump as the key piece of equipment used to explore the physical properties of air, vindicated the possibility of a vacuum, illustrated the extent to which life depended on air, and proved that the volume of air varies inversely with its pressure (Boyle's Law). 1661 saw the publication of the 'Sceptical Chemist' and 'Certain Physiological Essays', the beginning of a series where he sought to vindicate a mechanistic theory of matter and to remodel chemistry along new lines, and where he crucially vindicated an experimental approach. In the 1670's his publications continued the previous themes, but also included theology. In the 1680's, his interest shifted to medical matters, such as 'Memoirs for the Natural History of Human Blood' (1684), or the collections of recipes in his 'Medicinal Experiments' (1688-1694). At the same time, he continued his work as a Christian apologist, his 'The Christian Virtuoso' appearing in 1690. His concern about the theological implications of the new philosophy can be seen in 'Discourse of Things above Reason' (1681) and 'Disquisition about the Final Causes of Things' (1688). On his death in 1691 he endowed a Lectureship to expound the Christian message. His significance to the development of natural philosphy was recognised in his lifetime, and his influence was particularly important for Isaac Newton, the leading figure in the following generation, whose work is seen as the culmination of the scientific achievement of seventeenth-century England.
In 1821–1823 Thomas Colby was deputed by the Royal Society, with Captain Henry Kater, to work with the astronomers Arago and Matthieu of the Académie des Sciences to verify observations made forty years earlier connecting the triangulations of England and France. For cross-channel observations, Fresnel lamps with compound lenses 3 feet in diameter were used, and Colby's description of them influenced Robert Stevenson to adopt them in British lighthouses. ( Source: Oxford DNB).
Born, 1790; educated at the Royal Military College, Marlow, and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, 1805; joined the East India Company as a cadet, 1806; sailed for India as second lieutenant in the Bengal artillery, 1806; surveyed Java at the request of the lieutenant-governor, Stamford Raffles, 1814-1816; worked on improving the navigation of the rivers connecting the Ganges and the Hooghly; chief assistant on the great trigonometrical survey of India, 1818-1820; convalescence, 1820-1821; returned to the survey, 1821; superintendent of the great trigonometrical survey, 1823-1842; Surveyor-General of India, 1830-1843; returned to England, 1843; died, 1866.
Born 1800; entered the Royal Navy, 1812; served first on the BRISEIS under his uncle John whom he followed to the ACTAEON, DRIVER, and, in 1818, to the ISABELLA, in which the Rosses made their first Arctic voyage in 1818, searching for the north-west passage from Baffin Bay to the Bering Strait; appointed to undertake similar scientific work in the BECLA under William Edward Parry, 1819-1820; Arctic expedition, again under Parry in the RURY, 1821-1823; joined Parry's third voyage in the FURY, 1824-1825; second in command in the HECLA expedition on which Parry tried to reach the north pole over the ice, 1827; joined John Ross in the VICTORY to search for the north-west passage, 1829-1833; conducted the first systematic magnetic survey of the British Isles, 1835-1838; Antarctic, making geographical and magnetic observations, 1839-1843; expedition to search for Franklin, returning 1849; died, 1862.
William Hyde Wollaston: born at East Dereham, Norfolk, 1766; third son of the author Francis Wollaston and his wife, Althea Hyde; educated at a private school at Lewisham for two years and then at Charterhouse, 1774-1778; a pensioner of Caius College Cambridge, 1782; scholar of Caius College Cambridge, 1782-1787; appointed a senior fellow, 1787; retained his fellowship until his death; while at Cambridge, became intimate with John Brinkley and John Pond and studied astronomy with their assistance; graduated MB, 1788; on leaving Cambridge, worked as a physician in Huntingdon, 1789; subsequently went to Bury St Edmund's; became acquainted with the Reverend Henry Hasted, a close friend and lifelong correspondent; MD, 1793; elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1793 and admitted, 1794; admitted candidate of the Royal College of Physicians, 1794; Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, 1795; went to London and set up practice at no 18 Cecil Street, Strand, 1797; censor of the Royal College of Physicians, 1798; increasing devotion to various branches of natural science, including physics, chemistry, and botany, led him to retire from medical practice, 1800; looked to support himself by chemical research; took a house, no 14 Buckingham Street, Fitzroy Square, and set up a laboratory, 1801; innovations relating to platinum including the discovery of palladium and of a process for producing pure platinum and welding it into vessels, c 1804; awarded the Copley medal, 1802; Secretary of the Royal Society, 1804-1816; Fellow of the Geological Society, 1812; suggested in evidence before a committee of the House of Commons the replacement of the various gallons then in use by the 'imperial gallon' (adopted in the Weights and Measures Act of 1824), 1814; served as commissioner of the Royal Society on the Board of Longitude, 1818-1828; a member of the Royal Commission on Weights and Measures that rejected the adoption of the decimal system of weights and measures, 1819; frequently elected a vice-president of the Royal Society; declined a proposal to be nominated president of the Royal Society, but consented to act as president until the election, 1820; elected a foreign associate of the French Academy of Sciences, 1823; elected to the Royal College of Physicians, 1824; suffered occasional partial blindness in both eyes from 1800; attacked by symptoms said to be signify a fatal brain tumour, 1827; set about dictating papers on his unrecorded work, many of which were published posthumously; transferred £1,000 to the Geological Society (which formed 'the Wollaston Fund' from which the society awards annually the Wollaston medal and the balance of the interest), 1828; transferred £2,000 to the Royal Society to form the `Donation Fund', the interest to be applied in promoting experimental research, 1828; awarded a royal medal by the Royal Society for his work, 1828; elected a member of the Astronomical Society, 1828; died, 1828; his house was afterwards inhabited by his friend Charles Babbage. Publications: fifty-six papers on pathology, physiology, chemistry, optics, mineralogy, crystallography, astronomy, electricity, mechanics, and botany, the majority read before the Royal Society and published in the Philosophical Transactions.
Founder member of the Royal Society, one of the earliest Freemasons, he was devoted to the causes of the welfare of Scotland, loyalty to his monarch, and in promoting the new experimental philosophy. He was experienced in negotiating affairs of state, and an intimate friend of King Charles II. The son of Sir Mungo Moray of Craigie in Perthshire, he was educated in Scotland and in France, probably a member of the Scottish regiment which joined the French army in 1633. He made a considerable reputation for himself and was favoured by Cardinal Richelieu. In 1641 he was recruiting Scots soldiers for the French, later becoming Colonel of the Scots Guards at the French court. He was knighted in 1643 by Charles I. He was captured by the Duke of Bavaria in November 1643 whilst leading his regiment into battle for the French, and whilst in prison until 1645 was lent a book on magnetism by Kircherus, with whom he entered into correspondence. He tried unsuccessfully to arrange the escape of Charles I in 1646, and in 1651 was engaged in negotiations with the Prince of Wales to persuade him to come to Scotland, thus beginning his long friendship with the future Charles II.
After a failed Scottish rising in the Highland in 1653, his military career was over and he went into exile, in Bruges in 1656, then Maastricht until 1659, where he led the life of a recluse but spent his time in scientific pursuits. It was at this time that many of his letters to Alexander Bruce were written. Late in 1659 he went to Paris and did much, by correspondence, to help prepare for the return of the King to England, especially in relation to religious matters. After the return he was active in promoting the best interests of Scotland and was given high office. He was also provided with rooms at Whitehall Palace, the King's London residence, which included a laboratory, as the King shared his scientific interests. It was Moray who was the chief intermediary between the Royal Society and the King, and other highly placed persons at the Court such as Prince Rupert and the Duke of York. More important than his scientific work for the Society were his powers of organisation and firmness of purpose in establishing it on a sound and lasting basis, including his efforts in obtaining the three founding Royal Charters and his attempts to put the Society on a sound financial footing. In 1670 he and Lauderdale quarrelled, leading to Moray withdrawing from politics. On his death in 1673 he was buried in Westminster Abbey by personal order and expense of the king.
Thomas Gold was born, 22 May 1920 in Vienna, Austria. He lived there for the first ten years of his life before moving with his family to Berlin for three years. When he was thirteen, he was sent to Zuoz College, a boarding school in Switzerland. At the age of eighteen, he left for England, where his parents had settled and, at the age of nineteen, just after the Second World War had started, he went to study engineering at Trinity College, Cambridge. In May 1940, he was interned as an enemy alien. During his internment he met Hermann Bondi, a cosmologist and mathematician (1919-2005) with whom he formed a lifelong friendship.
In August 1941, Gold returned to Trinity College and, in 1942, received a BA degree in Mechanical Sciences (an MA degree in Mechanical Sciences from Cambridge University followed in 1946. He became a Doctor of Science at Cambridge University in 1969). Gold then worked for a few months as a farm labourer and lumberjack. In the autumn of 1942, Frederick Hoyle, Director of the theory group (code named Section XRC8) at the British Admiralty's Signal Establishment, hired him, on Hermann Bondi's advice, as an Experimental Officer to work on radar research and development.
Gold worked at the British Admiralty until 1946 before returning to Cambridge University where he applied for a research grant from the Medical Research Council (MRC) to study ultra sound and its possible use for medical diagnostics. Although the MRC agreed to the grant, Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, where he was going to carry out his research, had no space to accommodate him. Therefore his work could not go ahead. Instead, he found another position, also at Cavendish Laboratory, constructing a giant 21cm magnetron for accelerators.
After a few months, Gold went to carry out research into the mechanism of hearing in mammalian ears at the Zoological Laboratory, Cambridge, with Richard Pumphrey, whom he had met during the war. In 1947, he was awarded a prize fellowship from Trinity College for a thesis based on that research and married Merle Eleanor Tuberg, an American astronomer with whom he had three daughters. The marriage eventually ended in divorce. In the late 1940s, he, Hermann Bondi and Fred Hoyle developed the Steady State theory of the expanding universe. In 1949, he became a University Demonstrator in Physics at Cavendish Laboratory. In 1952, he became Chief Assistant to the Royal Astronomer (Senior Principal Scientific Officer) at Royal Greenwich Observatory.
In 1956, Gold moved to America and spent the autumn semester at Cornell University before settling at Harvard University where he became Professor of Astronomy (1957-1958) and then Robert Wheeler Willson Professor of Applied Astronomy, Harvard University (1958-1959). In 1957, he received a Master of Arts degree, honoris causa, from Harvard University. In 1959, he returned to Cornell University to become Chairman of its Astronomy Department (1959-1968) and Director of the Center for Radiophysics and Space Research (1959-1981), which he founded. From 1963 until 1971, he was involved in the running of Arecibo Observatory, a facility operated by Cornell University, and home to the world's largest single-dish radio telescope. He was also Assistant Vice President for Research (1969-1971), John L Wetherill Professor of Astronomy (1971-1986) and John L Wetherill Professor of Astronomy, Emeritus (1987-2004).
During his time at Cornell University, his achievements included correctly identifying that pulsars are rotating neutron stars, predicting that the surface of the moon would be covered with a layer of fine-grained rock powder ('lunar regolith' or 'moon dust') and designing the camera that astronauts used to photograph the surface of the moon on the Apollo 11, 12 and 14 missions. Towards the end of his life, he was perhaps best known for his advocacy of the controversial theory that oil and gas deposits are non-biological (abiogenic) in origin. He also proposed that microbial life exists deep beneath the earth's surface, a theory that has been proved correct. These theories resulted in two books, Thomas Gold, 'Power from the Earth: deep earth gas - energy for the future' (London, Dent, 1987) and Thomas Gold, 'The deep hot biosphere - the myth of fossil fuels' (New York, Copernicus Books, 1999).
In 1972, Gold married Carvel Beyer with whom he had one daughter. He died in Ithaca, New York, on 22 June 2004 at the age of 84. By birth, he was an Austrian citizen. He was also a British citizen (through naturalisation in July 1947) and an American citizen (through naturalisation in 1964).
Thomas Gold also held the following academic and non-academic positions: Vanuxem Lecturer, Princeton University (1973); Henry R Luce Professor of Cosmology, Mount Holyoke College, whilst on leave from Cornell University (1975-1976); Commonwealth Lecturer, University of Massachusetts (1975); Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar (1978-1979); Visiting Professor, Niehls Bohr Institute, Copenhagen (1980); Welsh Lecturer, University of Toronto (1980); Alexander von Humboldt Professor, University of Bonn, whilst on leave from Cornell University (1982); George Darwin Lectureship, Royal Astronomical Society, London (1982). He was also a member of the Space Sciences Panel of the American President's Science Advisory Committee for seven years and a member of a number of NASA planning committees including the Lunar and Planetary Missions Board.
Thomas Gold was also a Fellow or Member of the following societies: Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, London (10 December 1948). Served on the Council of the Society from 1955 until 1957; Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (8 May 1957); Member of the Cornell University Chapter of The Society of the Sigma Xi (15 May 1960); Fellow of The American Geophysical Union (April 1962); Fellow of the Royal Society (19 March 1964); Member of the National Academy of Sciences (1968); Fellow of the American Astronautical Society (1970). Member from 1970 until 1976; Member of the American Philosophical Society (21 Apr 1972); President of the New York Astronomical Society (1981-1986); Member of the International Academy of Astronautics.
Thomas Gold received the following: John F Lewis Prize, American Philosophical Society (1972); Alexander von Humboldt Prize [1979]; Gold Medal, Royal Astronomical Society, London (1985). He was also given an Honorary Fellowship by Trinity College, Cambridge (1986).
Basic English was developed by Charles Kay Ogden (1889 - 1957) as an 'international language' and as a system for teaching English to speakers of other languages using a simplified vocabulary of 850 words.
In 1927 Ogden established the Orthological Institute followed by the publication, in quick succession, of 'Basic English' (1930), 'The Basic Vocabulary' (1930), 'Debabelization' (1931) and 'The Basic Words' (1932). A period of rapid expansion saw the establishment of 30 agencies connected with Basic English across the world and by 1939 there were around 200 printed works in, or about, Basic English.
In 1943 Winston Churchill established a cabinet committee looking at Basic English. Following the committee's report, Churchill made a statement to the House of Commons on 9 March 1944. The statement outlined a strategy to develop Basic English as an 'auxiliary international and administrative language'. The statement was later published as White Paper CMD. 6511 titled 'The Atlantic Charter, and the Prime Minister's Statement on Basic English of March 9, 1944; in their original form, and in Basic English, for purposes of Comparison' (DC/BEF/5/10).
Ogden assigned his copyright for Basic English works to the Crown in June 1946. In 1947, with a grant from the Ministry of Education, the Basic English Foundation was established. The Basic English Foundation was constituted as a charitable trust 'to develop the study and teaching of the system and to promote a knowledge of Basic English, and thereby of the English Language, throughout the world'. The Basic English Foundation would remain closely associated with the Orthological Institute through which a certain amount of teacher training in Basic English was conducted.
Following the Second World War those concerned with Basic English were not able to reassemble the international network of teaching agencies. However, the promotion of Basic English as a means of teaching English continued.
The Basic English Foundation's main activity was translating and publishing books in Basic English and, after a controversial history, it finally wound up its activities in the 1960s.
Brenda Francis (fl. 1930s-1980s) was a London County Council (LCC)/Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) Advisory Teacher in the field of domestic science. She retired in the 1980s.
Advisory Teachers are experienced classroom teachers who are either seconded or employed permanently by their Local Education Authority to provide advisory and inspection services in schools in order to meet the training and development needs of teachers. They do so by arranging in-service training, helping schools prepare for inspection, and identifying and disseminating good practice.
The London County Council was the local government body for London from 1889 to 1965. It gained responsibility for education in London in 1904, as a result of the 1902 Education Act (which passed responsibility of education to Local Education Authorities). As such, it instigated a number of educational reforms and institutions within London, such as school medical services, school meals, open-air schools for delicate children, and the division of schools into primary and secondary stages.
The LCC was also influential in the passing of the 1944 Education Act, which introduced free secondary education for all children, with particular emphasis on girls and those of a lower socio-economic status. The Act also introduced comprehensive secondary schools, which had particularly strong political and administrative support in London. The first purpose-built state school in the United Kingdom was Kidbrooke School, in Greenwich, which opened in 1954.
In 1963, the London Government Act (an overhaul of general administration of the capital influenced by the 1957-1960 Royal Commission on Local Government in Greater London, also known as the Herbert Report) abolished and replaced the LCC with the Greater London Council (GLC). This came into force from 1965.
Responsibility for the education of Inner London (the London boroughs of Camden, Greenwich, Hackney, Hammersmith and Fulham, Islington, Kensington and Chelsea, Lambeth, Lewisham, Southwark, Tower Hamlets, Wandsworth, and the City of Westminster) was transferred to the newly-created Inner London Education Authority (ILEA).
The ILEA was considered to be a 'special committee' of the GLC, and consisted of members of the GLC from the Inner London area, plus one member delegated from each of the inner London boroughs and the City of London.
The ILEA was involved in some experimental approaches towards education, such as introducing an educational television network where programmes were prepared and presented by practising London teachers on secondment, with the assistance of professional television staff. By 1970, all London schools had been brought into the closed circuit network. The ILEA's desire to disseminate information and promote learning and training among the teachers as well as the pupils was also reflected in the number of advisory and resource books published by the organization during its existence.
By 1970 the ILEA had established Teachers Centres which provided in-service (INSET) education for ILEA teachers and had a team responsible for the development of home economics. Maureen Walshe was the Staff Inspector of home economics and was responsible for 4 subject inspectors who were each responsible for a region of the ILEA, oversaw the wardens of the Teachers Centres, and were responsible for an subject area of home economics comprising, needlecraft; special education; health education; and child development. From 1972 Brenda Francis was the ILEA Subject Inspector responsible for needlecraft and the East & North East and Central Regional of the ILEA. She also oversaw the warden of the Exton Street Teachers Centre. Advisory teachers were also appointed to work with each subject inspector to help develop the different subject areas.
Towards the end of the 1970s, ILEA was noted for its adoption of a culturally pluralist approach towards ethnic minorities in London schools. As such it issued a number of policy statements endorsing multiculturalism, with an emphasis on allowing children who had immigrated to London from countries outside the UK to be fully integrated into the education system. This reflected the current educational climate in the UK that propounded the belief that learning in schools should mirror the growing multicultural nature of the UK. The ILEA's publications on life in the Caribbean contained in this collection are part of this emphasis on integration of ethnic minorities into UK culture.
By the 1980s, the ILEA came under criticism from Conservative politicians, in particular the Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who believed that the organisation was over-spending and over-bureaucratic. Subsequently the ILEA was abolished in 1990 as a direct result of the Education Reform Act of 1988. Responsibility for education in London was transferred to the individual London Boroughs.
The British Families Education Service (BFES) was established by the Foreign Office in 1946 to provide schooling for the children of British families stationed in the British Zone of Germany after the Second World War, and amidst the post-War devastation. In the winter of 1951-1952 it was taken over by the Army and became Service Childrens' Education. The BFES Association was founded in 1967 to enable BFES teachers to keep in touch. In the 1980s it merged with the Service Childrens' Education Association (SCEA), which had changed its name to SCE, to become the BFES/SCE Association. It arranges annual reunions and publishes an annual magazine.
The Committee of Inquiry into Reading and the Use of English, chaired by Sir Alan Bullock, was appointed by the then Secretary of State for Education, Margaret Thatcher, against a background of anxiety over falling standards. Its remit was to consider all aspects of teaching the use of English, including reading, writing and speech. It reported in 1974 and the final report was published in 1975 as A Language for Life (London, 1975).
In 1918, the recommendations of a Departmental Committee on the construction of scales of salary (Cd 8939), paved the way for the first Burnham report of 1919, which established a provisional minimum scale for elementary school teachers payable from January 1920. This initial stage was followed in 1921 by four standard scales of salary allocated by areas, which were to operate for four years. Negotiations for scales of salary to operate following the four year settlement ended in disagreement and was finally decided by arbitration, Lord Burnham acting as arbiter. Four new scales were formulated as well as some re-allocation scales for individual authorities.
In 1919, the Standing Joint Committee on Scales of Salary for Teachers in Public Elementary Schools was established at the request of the President of the Board of Education 'to secure the orderly and progressive solution of the salary question in Public Elementary Schools on a national basis and its correlation with a solution of the salary problem in Secondary Schools'. Similar committees were subsequently established concerned with the salaries of teachers in secondary schools and those teaching in technical schools. The committees became known as the Burnham Committees after the chairman Lord Burnham, and following his death in 1933 the title was officially adopted.
Ebenezer Cooke (c 1837-1913) was a drawing master interested in the theory and practice of art education, who expressed his views in conference papers and journal articles. He taught in a variety of establishments, including succeeding John Ruskin at the Working Men's College. Among other activities, he served on the Council of the Society for the Development of the Science of Education (founded in 1875 as the Education Society), and on the Committee of the Third International Congress for the Development of Drawing and Art Teaching, 1908. In 1894 he also published an English edition of Pestalozzi's How Gertrude Teaches Her Children.
Denis Herbert Stott (1909-1988) was an educational psychologist who worked on delinquency, behavioural problems, child and adolescent development, and learning difficulties. He was educated at Cambridge, graduating in 1932 with a degree in Modern Languages and Economics. From 1932 to 1946 he taught languages in grammar and secondary modern schools, achieving a Diploma in Education from Oxford in 1943. From 1946 to 1951 Stott worked as a research officer for the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust, gaining a PhD from the University of London in 1950, and from 1951 to 1957 he was a Research Fellow at the Institute of Education, University of Bristol. In 1957 he moved to a post as Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Glasgow, from 1966-1968 was Professor and Chairman of the Psychology Department at the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada and from 1968 to 1975 was Director of the Centre for Educational Disabilities at Guelph, becoming a Professor Emeritus on his retirement in 1975.
Eileen Molony (1914-1982) was a BBC television producer involved in the production of a wide range of programmes, particularly in the areas of travel, natural history, education and child development. She produced the television series The Expanding Classroom which was first broadcast in 1969 and intended to provide an insight into schools which were implementing some of the recommendations of the Report of the Central Advisory Council for Education, Children and Their Primary Schools, 1967 (The Plowden Report). The schools covered in the programmes included Ashton County Primary School, Worcestersire; Eveline Lowe Primary School, London; Ashley Down Junior School, Bristol; Devizes Road Primary School, Salisbury, Wiltshire; Delves Infants' School, Walsall, Staffordshire; Fernwood Primary School, Nottinghamshire; Huntingdon Primary School, Nottinghamshire; Milford Primary School, Nottinghamshire; Portlans Primary School, Nottinghamshire; Green Meadow Primary School, Swindon, Wiltshire; and Eynsham County Primary School, Oxfordshire.
The The Dave O'Reilly Experiential Learning Archive was formed in 1998 at the instigation of Ed Rosen, who was concerned to collect and preserve a record of the development of experiential learning since its beginnings in the USA in the 1970s.
Gene Adams was a teacher who became a Museums Education Advisor. Adams received a BA in Fine Arts (Hons) from the University of Natal in South Africa in 1953. Soon after graduating she travelled to London and from 1956 to 1957 was employed as Assistant Curator at the William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow. During her return to South Africa from late 1957 she worked at temporary experimental museum educational projects at the South African National Gallery in Cape Town. She moved to London permanently in May 1959 to take up part time educational work at the Geffrye Museum.
After qualifying as a teacher in 1963 at the Institute of Education, Gene Adams taught at various London schools as an art teacher. In 1970-1974 Adams was seconded to the Geffrye Museum as a part time teacher and became the Teacher in Charge of the Art Room. After a series of activities at the Geffrye in 1974 looking at the history and architecture of the Spitalfields area, Adams helped formed the 'Save our Spitalfields' group who created an independent exhibition in 1979 promoting the Spitalfields area and highlighting the architecture which was at risk of demolition. The exhibition later toured museums in the south east.
In 1975 Gene Adams was appointed the Art and Museum Education Advisory Teacher at the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA). Here she developed educational activities in museums and art galleries, including school visits, holiday activities, in-services training courses for ILEA teachers, and general information leaflets for teachers on museums education mostly based at the historic houses of the Greater London Council (GLC). In 1978 she became the ILEA Museum Education Advisor.
When the ILEA was abolished in 1990 there was no place for her role in the new London authorities and she became a freelance museums education advisor. She was also a member of the education committee of Museum of Moving Image (MOMI), (later the NFT/MOMI education committee/South Bank Education Committee.) Adams also wrote articles on museums education for 'Questions' magazine, and ran a course for staff at the Museum Department of Kraftangan, a Malaysia crafts organisation, to help them establish an education service.
As well as her career in museum education, Gene Adams was also actively opposed corporal punishment in schools. She was a member of the National Council for Civil Liberties and in 1968 formed an anti-corporal punishment pressure group, known as the Society of Teachers Opposed to Physical Punishment (STOPP). She also served on the NCCL Executive and its Children's Rights Committee for several years. In 1973 Gene Adams resigned from the STOPP Committee.
Before Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany, Hilde Jarecki moved to England and was later involved in bringing children safely to Britain via The Kindertransport. She spent around 20 years working as the Senior Professional Advisor for the London Playgroup Association. As part of her involvement, early on she carried play equipment to the new playgroups, gave advice to members, organised meetings and had a major role in the playgroup movement. Hilde was the first person to introduce the concept of mothers helping in the playgroup that their child attended. She is perhaps best known for her book Playgroups: a Practical Approach, which was published by Faber in 1975. The publicity information for this book states: 'Hilde Jarecki, a professional adviser who has spent eight years as an organizer and tutor for the Inner London Playgroups Association, has written an essentially practical handbook based on her extensive experience, which will be invaluable for those employed full time in pre-school playgroup work and for parents of young children.' In the foreword of the book, written by Edna Oakeshott, March 1974, she describes Hilde Jarecki as: 'a pioneer who has given of herself unsparingly to establish a smooth-running organization on a professional footing. No more living recommendation could be provided than her vivid pictures of children and their parents in the playgroup setting.' Hilde continued her pioneering work within the playgroup movement until she was unable to continue on the grounds of ill health.
Horace Panting trained at the Institute of Education, University of London in 1934-1935. He was an East London science teacher holding posts at Holborn Boys' School, 1935-1940, and later at Stratford and Plaistow Grammar Schools and West Ham College of Technology. He retired in 1977. Throughout his teaching career he took a keen interest in school sport, both within the schools in which he taught and through involvement with associations such as West Ham Schools Sports Association and the London Schools Cricket Association.
The career of Richard Goodings (d 1992) included school teaching, educational administration and research, and lecturing in higher education. From 1965 to his death in 1992 he was on the staff of the School of Education, University of Durham. Prior to this, whilst he was a member of staff of the University of London Institute of Education in the late 1950s, he began work on a history of the Institute which was never completed.
The London Day Training College was founded in 1902. It became the Institute of Education in 1932.
Born in London, 1923; worked in the Ministry of Information typing pool as a temp to the Soviet section, later becoming co-ordinator and editorial assistant, [1939-1945]; worked with a range of bodies promoting women's issues; worked for the National Assembly of Women, 1952; worked for the fundraising office of a charity for handicapped children; took GCEs, and later a BEd in psychology, at London's Sydney Webb College, 1960s; schoolteacher, mid-1970s; Barking and Dagenham Schools' Psychological Service, [1975]-1987; retired, 1987; died 2003. Rose Kosky was a member of the Communist Party from the 1930s until the 1980s, when she joined the Labour Party.
The Barking Reading Project was a project by the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, [1975-1979], which aimed to help teachers to teach children with reading difficulties in the classroom rather than referring them to external experts. The specialist teachers working on the project came from Barking and Dagenham Schools' Psychological Service, they were: Jo Addington, Freda Cookson, Beryl Cooper, Kathy Conway and Rose Kosky. The scheme they devised was aimed at children aged 7+, who had failed to learn letter sounds completely and were unable to use them quickly in blending tasks.
The aims of the London History Teachers' Association were: to promote meetings of interest to history teachers in secondary schools; to further the interests of history teachers by exchanging experience of syllabus and method, by attempting to place the results of research and revision at their disposal and by providing opportunity for them to meet each other informally and socially; to experiment in liaison work between university and school; to investigate the problems, scope and content of history teaching and to organise a body of opinion, to collaborate with other interested groups and to consult with examining boards. Membership was open to anyone interested in the teaching of history in secondary schools. In 1975 it was felt that the pioneer role of the Association in encouraging in-service education and been increasingly pre-empted by other bodies, that there were increased pressures on teachers in terms of time and energy, and difficulties in public transport which all resulted in poor attendance. The Association therefore decided to cease formal meetings and instead to continue for social activities only. During the course of its activities, it held lectures and meetings on a wide range of subjects and its records give an insight into the opinions and concerns of history teachers during the period. Guest speakers addressed a variety of practical, philosophical and political issues affecting the teaching of history. Topics ranged from 'What is a good textbook?', 'The training of a history teacher', 'Archaeology in schools' and 'The use and production of television programmes for history' to '"A world outlook": its educational implications'. The Association was chaired by Margaret Bryant and Jim Henderson of the University of London Institute of Education.
Mimi Hatton was born in 1915. During World War Two, she was an infant teacher at St Mary Cray Junior and Infant School in Kent, and set up home teaching groups for the children when school was suspended for fear of bombing. The school was evacuated to North Wales in 1944, and there Miss Hatton set up schools in Tabernacle vestries, a disused sawmill and a disused science laboratory.
In 1946 she wrote to the Foreign Office offering her services as a teacher to the children of families of the occupying forces in Germany, and became a teacher with the BFES in 1946. She embarked to Germany on 18th December 1946, and initially taught at the BFES School in Bad Zwischenahn from 1947-1949. She then served successively as the Head of Oldenburg School, 1949-1950, and the BFES Bad Oeynhausen Nursery, Infant and Junior School, 1950-1952.
In 1952, she become headmistress of a school for educationally sub-normal girls in Kent (Broomhill Bank), a position she held for two years. In 1954, she was taken on by Devon County Council to run a similar school in Devon, Maristow House in Lord Roborough's estate on the banks of the river Tavy.
When she was first appointed, Maristow was semi-derelict, and she supervised its restoration to a usable condition. She then set about furnishing it for use as a boarding school, and hired all the staff. She ran the school until it closed in 1976, after being taken over by Plymouth City Council. At this point, she took early retirement, aged 61. Although primarily a girls school, in its later years it took in day boys up to the age of eleven.
Throughout her period at Maristow, Lord Roborough, as Chairman of the school governors, became a close friend, and she was regularly a guest at head of table at family dinners.
Margaret Read (1889-1991) was an pioneer in applying social anthropology and ethnography to the education and health problems of developing countries. Having studied at Newnham College Cambridge, from 1919 to 1924 she undertook missionary social work in Indian hill villages. From 1924-1930 she lectured on international affairs in Britain and the United States. During the 1930s she studied anthropology at the London School of Economics (LSE), did ethnographic field research in Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland and lectured at LSE. In 1940 Margaret Read was awarded a Chair at the Institute of Education, University of London and became Head of the Department of Education in Tropical Areas, a post which she held until her retirement in 1955. Read was influential in shaping the British Government's attitude to post-war colonial education and was a close personal friend of Sir Christopher Cox at the Colonial Office. After her retirement, she undertook consultancy work, notably for the World Health Organisation and held a number of visiting professorships in Nigeria and the United States.
Prepared by Vandercom, Stanton & Co, solicitors
In 1990, Sir Claus Moser gave the Presidential Address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science in which he drew attention to the need for 'an overall review of the education and training scene: a review which would be visionary about the medium and long-term future facing our children and this country; treating the system in all its inter-connected parts; and last, but not least, considering the changes in our working and labour market scenes.' His call for a Royal Commission was rejected by the government. Instead, the National Commssion on Education was established as an independent body set up in July 1991 under the auspices of the British Association for the Advancement of Science and with sponsorship from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation. Its remit was to consider all phases of education and training throughout the whole of the United Kingdom and to identify and examine key issues arising over the next 25 years. The Commission's terms of reference were: 'In the light of the opportunities and challenges that will face the United Kingdom in a changing world over the next 25 years, to identify and consider key issues arising from: the definition of educational goals and assessment of the potential demand for education and training, in order to meet the economic and social requirements of the country and the needs and aspirations of people throughout their lives; and the definition of policies and practical means whereby opportunities to satisfy that demand may be made available for all, bearing in mind the implications for resources and institutions and for all of those involves in the education and training system; and to report its conclusions and recommendations in such manner as it may think fit.' The Commission identified seven key issues and established working groups, consisting of two Commission and two external members, to look into each of them: 1. Effective schooling 2. Schools, society and citizenship 3. The teaching profession and quality 4. Higher and further education in the twenty-first century 5. Preparing for work today and tomorrow 6. Better ways of learning 7. Resources It also undertook a wide variety of other activities including seminars, formal and informal discussion meetings, surveys, lectures and visits. It gathered advice and opinion from individuals and organisations by means of written and oral evidence, commissioned new research and analysed existing statistics and literature. Several prominent educationists and other public figures served on the Commission. The Commissioners were: John Walton, Lord Walton of Detchant, House of Lords (Chairman); John Raisman, British Telecom (Deputy Chairman); John Cassels, National Economic Development Office (Director); Averil Burgess, South Hampstead High School; Betty Campbell, Mount Stuart Primary School, Cardiff; David Giachardi, Courtaulds plc; Christopher Johnson, Lloyds Bank; Helena Kennedy, Barrister; Alistair MacFarlane, Heriot Watt University; Margaret Maden, County Education Officer, Warwickshire; Claus Moser, Wadham College, Oxford; Jenny Shackleton, Wirral Metropolitan College; Richard Staite, Beeslack High School, Penicuik, Lothian; Jeff Thompson, University of Bath; David Watson, Brighton Polytechnic; Peter Wickens, Nissan Motor Manufacturing (UK) Ltd.
Peter Cornall (b 1930) trained as a teacher at the University of Oxford, qualifying in 1955, and went on to teach in comprehensive secondary schools in Oxfordshire (Chipping Norton), 1955-1959 and London (Crown Woods School, Eltham, 1959-1964). After three years as an education officer in Wiltshire (1964-1967) he became headteacher of comprehensive schools in Nottinghamshire (West Bridgford Grammar School, 1967-1972 ) and the Isle of Wight (Carisbrooke High School, 1972-1981). As County Chief Inspector of Schools in Cornwall (1981-1991) he created a full advisory service and promoted curriculum development and school review. He retired in 1991. Throughout his career Cornall retained an unswerving commitment to comprehensive secondary education. During 1992-1993 Cornall was Honorary Research Fellow of the University of Leicester, researching into 'value-added' and he remained a school governor and trustee of the Centre for the Study of Comprehensive Schools for several years.
Richard Stanley Peters was born in India in 1919. As a child he was sent to live with his grandmother in England where he attended boarding school. From 1933-1938 Peters attended Clifton College, Bristol, and then proceeded to study for an Arts Degree at Queen's College, Oxford University from 1938-1940 (he was awarded a war degree in 1942). In 1940 he joined the Friends Ambulance Service and was drafted to London during the Blitz. From 1944 to 1946 he was Classics Master at Sidcot Grammar School, Somerset.
In 1946 he was granted a Studentship (to study Philosophy and Psychology) at Birkbeck College, where he also worked as a part-time Lecturer. Peters graduated with a BA in 1946 and a PhD in 1949. He was then subsequently a Lecturer (1949-1958) and Reader (1958-1962) in Philosophy at Birkbeck. In 1962 he was appointed Professor of Philosophy of Education, Institute of Education, a post that he held until his retirement in 1982.
Among other roles, Peters was Visiting Professor of Education, Harvard University, 1961; Visiting Professor, Australian National University, 1962; Dean of the Faculty of Education, University of London, 1971-1974; Member of the American National Academy of Education, 1966; Chair, Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain.
Bernarr Rainbow (1914-1998) trained at Trinity College of Music and was appointed Organist and Choirmaster of High Wycombe Parish Church and Senior Music Master at the Royal Grammar School, High Wycombe in 1944. In 1952 he became Director of Music at the teacher training College of S. Mark and S. John in Chelsea, transferring to Gypsy Hill College of Education in 1972 and then becoming Head of Music at Kingston Polytechnic. He retired in 1978. Rainbow researched, wrote and published extensively on music education and historical musicology, becoming a distinguished scholar of the history of music education and gaining three postgraduate degrees from the University of Leicester. He wrote a biography of John Curwen (1816-1880), the inventor of the tonic sol-fa method of singing, and founded the Curwen Institute to promote his work. He was President of the Campaign for the Defence of the Traditional Cathedral Choir which resisted the introduction of women and in 1996 he established the Bernarr Rainbow Award for School Music Teachers.
The Schools Council was established in 1964 by the Secretary of State for Education. It took over responsibility for curriculum and examinations previously undertaken by the Secondary Schools Examination Council and the Curriculum Study Group. In 1969, with a revised constitution, it became a registered charity and, in 1970, an independent body financed in equal parts by government and local education authorities. A wide range of educational bodies, including teachers' organisations, were represented on the Council. In 1983-1984 its work was taken over by the Schools Curriculum Development Committee and the Secondary Schools Examination Council. In 1984 it went into voluntary liquidation. It was a non-directive body intended to provide leadership in curriculum, examination and assessment development. Its work was undertaken by committees and working parties responsible for different programmes. It commissioned much research into these areas and published a large quantity of reports.
Arthur Sporne (1890-1977) was born in King's Lynn, Norfolk 1890 as the youngest child of William Sporne, grocer, and Hannah Morley, five of whose eight children, including Arthur, went on to become teachers. From 1893 he attended a 'British' [and Foreign Schools Society] elementary school, where his brother was a pupil teacher, and then a 'Church' [of England] school, before moving to King's Lynn Grammar School. He trained as a teacher at Sheffield Training College c1908-1910. From 1911 he worked at the Joseph Lancester Elementary School in Ealing, as well as having short periods of experience at Fulham Reformatory and of war service during World War One. Following military service, Sporne returned to teaching at the Joseph Lancaster School until 1924 at which date the school was transferred to the Grange School, Ealing. The school was evacuated to Stoke Mandeville during the Second World War. After the War he taught at Selbourne School where he specialised in the teaching of mathematics. He retired in 1954 after which he wrote, and coached school phobics.